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Jane Eyre from Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre lived in the wrong time period. In the Victorian period, women were supposed to have femininity, be domestic, obedient, uneducated, and prepared for marriage. They were seen as clean and pure, dependent on men, and isolated from the outside world. Bronte wants the readers to think that Jane’s behavior is worthwhile due to how her life comes together. Jane goes against these Victorian roles most strongly by standing up against men. One of the first instances readers see Jane defy these roles is when she is just ten years old. She lived with her aunt, Mrs. Reed, and her family, for she had no living parents. The oldest son, John Reed, had bullied Jane. One day, she decided she would not take his abuse. John took a great blow at her, so she struck back. The servants quickly came to John’s aid and dragged Jane up to the red room. On the way to the room, one of the lady’s-maids cried, “What shocking conduct, Miss Eyre, to strike a young gentleman, your benefactress’s son! Your young master” (Bronte 15). This had led to Jane being sent to school, which had benefited her greatly. The consequences of this defiance sent Jane to live a better life. …show more content…
Rochester as he asks her to stay and marry him. She had decided that it would be better for her, and him, if she had just left Thornfield. When Rochester asks Jane to stay and be his wife her response is utterly shocking for her time. She exclaims, “Mr. Rochester, I will not be yours” (Bronte 363). Women of the time never disobeyed a man. This helped Jane live out her life happily because if she had said yes, she would have gone against her morals. She would have lived knowing she was going to hell because Rochester had another wife. This rebellion led her to live a fulfilled, happy
Jane Eyre has a rough start to her foundation, to begin she is orphaned at a young age. This sets up many problems for the young girl and her fragile identity. The people around worsen the situation as Jane grows. They challenge her patience, integrity, and intelligence. As a female Jane must deal with the caste system of her time as a threat, and as an orphaned child she must deal with the cast system as an obstacle. The family of Reeds that she lives with reminds her everyday of her low position. “She suffers precisely because she knows the value of caste; She may be poor, but she does not want to belong to the poor” (Bell 2). This makes Jane want to thrive more because she realizes the odds against her. Originally, Jane comes from a middle-class family but when her father dies she is left to the pity of the Reeds. The Reeds mistreat Jane and she grows to long the outside world. Jane clearly shows her position when she says, “ It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, as submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved”.
In the novel, Jane Eyre starts as a young girl of ten years old; she lives with her aunt Mrs. Reed and her cousins John, Georgiana, and Eliza. At Gateshead, Jane has undergone betrayal in the acts that the Reed family does not treat her as a part of their family. Mrs. Reed treats Jane unkindly and as if she was a victim to put it, in other words, Mrs. Reed says “ take her away to the red-room and lock her in there” (Brontë, Ch. 1). Mrs. Reed
After completing her education, Jane accepted a job as governess at Thornfield Hall. Jane eventually developed feeling for her employer, Mr. Rochester. Jane accepted Mr. Rochester's hand in marriage despite knowing despite knowing that he was currently married. Jane was lied to and after the discovery of Mr. Rochester's wife, Jane left Thornfield with little money and a broken heart.
At the beginning of the novel while Jane is living under her aunt, Mrs. Reed, she is treated disrespectfully and cruelly. She accuses Jane of being deceitful and a troublesome girl in front of Mr. Brocklehurst, the master of Lowood School. Jane is so hurt by this accusation that she cannot stop herself from defending her well being, and she stands up to her aunt. She knows she is being treated disrespectful and has much more self-worth than ...
However, Jane does not merely melt under Rochester’s gaze and pressures ultimately becoming something of his. No, She makes him work and prove himself worthy, which is not considered a normality in the courting process. Victorian women are expected to remain polite, quiet, and reserved. Never stepping out of turn or speaking out. "I am resolved my husband shall not be a rival, but a foil to me.
The three events that mark Jane as an evolving dynamic character are when she is locked in the red room, self reflecting on her time at Gateshead, her friendship with Helen Burns at LoWood, her relationship with Mr. Rochester, and her last moments with a sick Mrs. Reed. Brought up as an orphan by her widowed aunt, Mrs. Reed, Jane is accustomed to her aunts vindictive comments and selfish tendencies. Left out of family gatherings, shoved and hit by her cousin, John Reed, and teased by her other cousins, Georgina and Eliza Reed, the reader almost cringes at the unfairness of it all. But even at the young age of ten, Jane knows the consequences of her actions if she were to speak out against any of them. At one point she wonders why she endures in silence for the pleasure of others. Why she is oppressed. "Always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, forever condemned" (Bronte, 12). Jane’s life at Gateshead is not far from miserable. Not only is she bullied by her cousins and nagged by her aunt, but help from even Bessie, her nurse and sort of friend, seems out of her reach. In the red room scene Jane is drug by Ms. Ab...
The story begins as Jane lives with the Reed family in their home at Gateshead Hall. Here, the theme of education vs. containment develops immediately, as Jane is kept confined indoors on a cold winter day. The other children (Eliza, John, and Giorgiana) are "clustered round their mamma in the drawing-room" (Bronte: 39) being educated, as Jane had been excluded from the group. Jane tries to educate herself by reading from Berwick's History of British Birds, but once again, she is held back from her attempt at enlightenment by the abuse of John Reed, who castigates her and throws the heavy book at her. In anger, Jane cries out, "You are like a murderer - you are like a slave-driver - you are like the Roman emperors" (Bronte: 43). In this passage, Jane compares John Reed to a slave-driver because, like a slave-driver, he deprives Jane of her attempt at education and keeps her suppressed. Afterwards, Jane is blamed for the entire incident and...
At the start of Jane Eyre, Jane is living with her widowed aunt, Mrs. Reed, and her family after being orphaned. Jane is bitterly unhappy there because she is constantly tormented by her cousins, John, Eliza, and Georgiana. After reading the entire book you realize that Jane was perfectly capable of dealing with that issue on her own, but what made it unbearable was that Mrs. Reed always sided with her children, and never admitted to herself that her offspring could ever do such things as they did to Jane. Therefore, Jane was always punished for what the other three children did, and was branded a liar by Mrs. Reed. This point in the book marks the beginning of Jane's primary conflict in the novel. She feels unloved and unaccepted by the world, as her own family betrays her.
In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Jane is an orphan who is often mistreated by the family and other people who surround her. Faced with constant abuse from her aunt and her cousins, Jane at a young age questions the treatment she receives: "All John Reed’s violent tyrannies, all his sister’s proud indifference, all his mother’s aversion, all the servants’ partiality, turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well. Why was I always suffering, always brow-beaten, always accused, forever condemned?" (27; ch. 2). Despite her early suffering, as the novel progresses Jane is cared for and surrounded by various women who act as a sort of "substitute mother" in the way they guide, comfort, and inspire her. By looking into Charlotte Bronte’s own childhood and family background, as well as discovering aspects of Victorian motherhood in the mid-nineteenth century, one may be enlightened as to why so many substitute mothers are present to Jane throughout the novel. The substitute mothers, although a starting point for Jane’s emotional redemption, do not prove to fulfill what a mother in the Mid-Victorian era would be.
Jane continually advocates for herself throughout her narration. She pushes aside her ache for Mr. Rochester's affection in order to maintain her values. She does not let passion interfere with reason, arguing that if she broke her values, "What would they be worth?" a. The number of a. Jane "plants her foot" at the thought of leaving with Mr. Rochester, leaving him to travel to the unknown.
Bronte’s Jane Eyre is brimming with feminist ideology rebuking Victorian-Era gender-roll ethics and ideals. As a creative, independent woman with a strong personality and will growing up during this period of female repression, Bronte wrote Jane Eyre as a feminist message to society. She criticizes the average, servile, ignorant Victorian woman, and praises a more assertive, independent, and strong one. She does this through her protagonist Jane, who embodies all of Bronte’s ideal feminine characteristics. She is a strong woman, both mentally and physically, who seeks independence and is in search of individuality, honesty, and above all equality both in marriage and in society in a world that does not acknowledge women as individuals.
Women, in all classes, were still living in a world which was misogynistic and male-dominated. Their purpose in life was to produce male heirs and maintain the home by hiring and overseeing servants. It was also taboo for one to marry significantly below one’s social class. This is one reason that Jane is not a conventional heroine for the society of her time. Although, as a governess, she is not considered to be as low as a housemaid, she is still part of the hired help in the house. This is why it is unconventional for her and Mr Rochester to be in a relationship. Yet this is not as peculiar as how Jane Eyre ends their relationship due to her sense of betrayal. It would have been considered extremely foolish for a working-woman’s sense of betrayal to end and turn down a man of great wealth.
The development of Charlotte Bronte's character, Jane Eyre, becomes vital to her novel Jane Eyre, and the other characters in which she is involved. She is an intelligent, plain featured, honest young girl whose reaction to her situations brings more depth to her personality. She is forced to deal with oppression, discrimination, and at times poverty, which disrupt her strong will, dignity, and desire for freedom. At the beginning, Jane possesses a passion for pride and the idea of freedom and these characteristics, along with her integrity, are tested continuously throughout the novel by the many personalities with whom she encounters. Living in a male dominant world Jane is expected to remain obedient and docile and her passion sometimes keeps her from being able to do this. She is a rarity among obeying female characters and we see this throughout the book.
Jane’s initial struggle begins as she is brought up by her aunt. Jane is living in an upper-class household and is being treated as a person of the lower-class. Jane would be antagonized on a daily basis by the Reed children. As an outcast, Jane realizes at an early age how much class affects the behavior of people in society. Jane would be punished by Mrs. Reed regularly, which may have fueled her rebellious nature. A specific example would be when Jane was sent to the “red room” by Mrs. Reed as punishment for fighting with her son. This was the room where Mrs. Reed’s husband was found dead. This shows that Mrs. Reed had absolutely no respect for Jane as an individual as Mrs. Reed knew that Jane believed that the room was haunted. This event also shows that Mrs. Reed does not respect her deceased husband, as she abandoned the room after he was found.
At the beginning of the book, Jane was living with her aunt Mrs. Reed and her children. Although Jane is treated cruelly and is abused constantly, she still displays passion and spirit by fighting back at John and finally standing up to Mrs Reed. Even Bessie ‘knew it was always in her’. Mrs. Reed accuses Jane of lying and being a troublesome person when Mr. Brocklehurst of Lowood School visited Gateshead. Jane is hurt, as she knows she was not deceitful so she defends herself as she defended herself to John Reed when he abused her, as she said “Wicked and cruel boy! You are like a murderer – you are like a slave driver – you are like the Roman emperors!” to John Reed instead of staying silent and taking in the abuse, which would damage her self-confidence and self-worth. With the anger she had gotten from being treated cruelly, she was able to gain ...